(Note: This is part of a series of articles, arranged by subject, from last Thursday's Forbes' interview with Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou. Click here to return to the main screen for other topics.)

Q. When you look back, is there anything along the way of introducing the (services trade) agreement that you would do differently? What lessons have you learned from this?

A. That is a good question, because the challenges encountered by the trade in services agreement stem from the doubts or fears many people in Taiwan have about mainland China. This mindset has caused many things, which originally were not problems at all, to suddenly be spoken of as scary.

In the future, with similar agreements, when we promote them, we must explain them to the public sooner, more broadly and more carefully, and we must foster a healthy and balanced attitude toward mainland China. It cannot be that every time mainland China is encountered the association is that it is "scary" or "malicious." In fact, there is only a 180-kilometer wide Taiwan Strait between us; we cannot overlook mainland China's existence. We cannot avoid interacting with them just because there has been no change in their military deployment in relation to Taiwan.